Just like Taylor Swift in Bad Blood, Samsung has also found a powerful group of backers in its fight against Apple in court. According to a document unearthed by Inside Sources, Google, Facebook, eBay, Dell, HP and other big tech corporations have submitted a "friend of the court" brief on July 1st, supporting Samsung's stance. The two companies have been embroiled in legal fisticuffs for years, ever since Apple first filed a lawsuit against Samsung for violating various intellectual properties, such as tap-to-zoom, single-finger scrolling and two-finger zooming, as well as edge-to-edge glass design, among other things.

Since San Francisco is all about startups, it's no surprise that the city changed its laws to accommodate one of its most successful: Airbnb. Last year, officials passed the so-called "Airbnb law," legalising short-term rentals of private property with a lot of caveats. Hosts complained that the new rules were inconvenient, so the city is creating a new taskforce to make the regulations easier to follow and catch those breaking the law.

Uber has announced operational changes in response to German courts banning its service twice in less than a year. According to a Reuters report, Uber will amend its UberPOP program (the European version of UberX) to charge 35 cents per kilometer. This matches what local taxi services charge in both Frankfurt and Munich. The company had already implemented that pricing scheme in Berlin, Duesseldorf and Hamburg. Uber bemoaned the court's ruling, calling it "a defeat for all those who want more choice for their personal mobility," but complied with the order to avoid a $266,000 fine. The company will continue to operate licensed limos and taxis throughout Germany while it reportedly works on a legal ridesharing alternative that complies with the country's laws.

The Wall Street Journal reports that after a half decade-long investigation, the EU's chief antitrust regulator will be moving forward with a case against Google for reported violations of European law. The official declaration is expected to take place tomorrow when EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager meets with rest of the European commissioners. The complaint stems from a number of continental shopping and travel sites which assert that Google manipulated search results in order to better promote its own brands at their expense. The search behemoth has attempted to settle the case repeatedly since it began in 2010 but to no avail. Should Google be found guilty of the charges, it could theoretically face fines totalling more than $6 billion dollars.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit group that defends civil liberties in the digital world, is facing off against the Entertainment Software Association, the organization that represents most major video game publishers in the US. The EFF wants to allow players to put abandoned games back online and has asked the US Copyright Office for an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This would allow players to legally modify the code of online games that are no longer supported by publishers, in the hope of reconnecting these titles to new, third-party servers. This includes games like Battlefield 1942, Star Wars: Battlefront, SOCOM 4, Resistance: Fall of Man and Mario Kart Wii. Many modern games rely on servers to function; if Activision pulled the plug on Destiny, for example, even its single-player campaign would disappear, since the entire game needs an online connection.

Uber's Paris headquarters were recently raided by 25 policemen, but a court has now ruled that its disputed UberPOP service is actually honky-dory -- for now. The company's low-cost ridesharing option uses non-professional drivers, a practice that French authorities have called unlawful (its other services use professional drivers and are legal). However, the decision is more of a reprieve than a victory for Uber. Paris's Cour d'Appel merely passed the buck to a higher appeals court on whether or not to ban UberPOP. Still, it means Uber can continue to operate the service in Paris until at least June, when a new constitutional court ruling is due.

Few people like being swept up in a legal dispute. Whether it's a small disagreement or a bitter financial feud, once the courts are involved everything becomes a slow, stressful and potentially expensive mess. That's why the UK's Civil Justice Council (CJC) is proposing a new online system that would deal specifically with "low value" cases. The idea being that most of these smaller disputes could be automated or handled with minimal supervision from legal experts, making the process cheaper, faster and more convenient.

Hop onto a site like Airbnb or One Fine Stay and you'll find plenty of houses, flats and rooms available in London for short-term rental. While these are perfect for visitors after a more homely (and sometimes cheaper) stay in the capital, those wanting to squeeze a few quid out of their dormant spaces aren't exactly doing things by the book. A law, which many see as outdated, essentially prevents Londoners from letting their pads out for less than three months at a time (without appropriate planning permission), and some of the city's boroughs have tried taking legal action against wannabe landlords on this basis.

This is especially true in upmarket areas like Westminster, the City of London, Chelsea and Kensington, where local councils argue it could foster housing shortages and turn residential areas into nuisance-ridden, decentralized hotels. So, in an effort to curb patchy implementation of the law, and to support Londoners wanting to tap into the "sharing economy," the government has announced a proposal that would make short-term rentals through sites like Airbnb legal; though unsurprisingly, it's already drawing flak.

Uber can't keep itself out of the news lately. The San Francisco-based company best known for creating a mobile app that connects taxi/livery services with smartphone users is now banned from operation in Spain. The injunction is a result of a complaint from the Madrid Taxi Association, and it forces Uber to cease operations in the country immediately; a statement from the Madrid court announcing the injunction points out that Uber didn't even get to defend itself, and cites Uber's business license being from Delaware (a tax haven where many companies file, despite not being based there) as the reason.

If all this sounds a bit like a kangaroo court, that's because it likely is: entrenched taxi and livery companies have been working against Uber and other ridesharing services in a variety of cities all over the world. Uber is of course far from perfect -- this is a company that was recently caught plotting against journalists, headed by a CEO that's been heavily criticized for misogyny -- but it wasn't even present to defend itself in the Spanish court hearing that ended its ability to function in Spain. Expect Uber to push back in the coming weeks; the company didn't respond to request for comment as of publishing.

When Target was, well, targeted by hackers in search of customer payment information late last year, legal backlash from banks was probably one of the last things the company's brass was worried about. They've got to be singing a different tune now, as the New York Times reports that a United States District Judge has shot down Target's attempt to dismiss lawsuits brought on by banks displeased with the retailer's security chops.

In July 2014, Lindsay Lohan sued Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games, claiming that Grand Theft Auto V featured a character who is allegedly based on the Mean Girls actress. According to the suit, filed in the New York Supreme Court, the cover of the game depicts a bikini-clad woman who bears a striking resemblance to LiLo. And the game itself apparently consists of more similarities, including the fact that the character runs from paparazzi, takes cover in the Chateau Marmont and incorporates Lohan's "image, likeness, clothing, outfits, [Lohan's] clothing line products, ensemble in the form of hats, hair style, sunglasses [and] jean shorts."

Also in July, former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega filed suit in California Superior Court against Activision Blizzard Inc., the makers of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, for using his likeness without permission. According to the complaint, Activision depicted Noriega as "a kidnapper, murderer and enemy of the state," (the audacity!) and the makers implied that he was "the culprit of numerous fictional heinous crimes, creating the false impression that defendants are authorized to use [his] image and likeness."

Lohan's and Noriega's suits were filed in two different states, and because of this, the applicable laws vary a bit. Lohan's battle is ongoing while Noriega's has been dismissed. One involves a celebrity, and the other a political figure. On the face of it, these two suits don't have all that much in common. The thread that connects them both –- and most lawsuits involving the use of a person's likeness in a video game -– is the right of publicity.

Currently, there are over 800,000 Airbnb listings in more than 34,000 cities and 190 countries. With upwards of 20 million guests, it's safe to say that Airbnb has nestled its way into the hearts of many a traveler.

It's really not surprising that the masses have been charmed by Airbnb, right? Because as exciting as it is to make travel plans for, say, a vacation, there's always that little tinge of anxiety about leaving the comforts of home (at least for some of us). But Airbnb offers something to assuage that anxiety by allowing you to stay in another person's home. No, this is not the same as being in your own space, but some might argue that it's more comforting than the sometimes methodical feel of a hotel.

And the icing on the cake? While you're away on your vacation, Airbnb allows you to make some money with your empty space – also known as hosting.

Airbnb's story is not just "unique travel experiences," affordable prices and monetizing your unused space. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the audience), there are laws in place that are meant to limit when, where and how you can list your space.

Ever heard of Electronics for Imaging? We hadn't either until this morning, but it's apparently a multimillion dollar, multinational, public corporation based out of Fremont, California. And the United States Department of Labor just caught EFI red-handed in an investigation, which found that "about eight employees" were flown in from India to work 120-hour weeks for $1.21 per hour. EFI apparently thought it was okay to pay the employees the same wages they'd be paid in India (in Indian rupees). Here's the unbelievably crazy sounding quote EFI gave to NBC's Bay Area affiliate: "We unintentionally overlooked laws that require even foreign employees to be paid based on local US standards."

Just so we're clear: is there anyone reading this who doesn't know that any person working in the United States is legally required to be compensated according to United States laws?

The posting of 'revenge porn' may become unequivocally illegal in England and Wales soon, after the House of Lords agreed yesterday the law should be amended to specifically include the practice. Currently, anyone that shares explicit images to humiliate a former partner can be prosecuted under sex offense laws -- something the Crown Prosecution Service was keen to highlight in new guidance released a few weeks ago. To deal with the growing problem more directly, however, the Lords' amendment would consider the sharing of such images a serious criminal offense in its own right, carrying a maximum prison sentence of two years. Should MPs in the House of Commons approve the amendment, perpetrators would be more easily punishable, and victims would have stronger grounds to demand the removal of any published images. Clarifying the law with regards to revenge porn isn't the only crackdown on bad internet behaviour currently under consideration, as the UK Justice Secretary recently called for the maximum prison sentence for serious trolls to be increased from six months to two years.

It's made you distrustful and toyed with your emotions and now a Staten Island Support Magistrate has deemed Facebook an acceptable vehicle for your legal woes. According to the New York Post, Gregory Gliedman ruled that Noel Biscocho could use the social network to serve his ex, Anna Maria Antigua, with a legal notice that he no longer wishes to pay child support for their 21-year-old son. The ruling reportedly came after Biscocho attempted to reach Antigua multiple times in the real world. And here we thought breaking up via text message was bad.

The folks down at the Federal Trade Commission are busy helping all of us these days, whether they're weighing in on patent disputes or forcing firms to help cover your child's lack of parental supervision. Today, the FTC charged several companies and individuals with participation in an elaborate shell game from 2010 that was really just a $275 million dollar credit card scam. According to a separate, ongoing lawsuit filed by the Commission, a company called I Works did the stealing, but wouldn't have been able to take $26 million of the total without the aid of the defendants in this new lawsuit.

In some of the most popular multiplayer role-playing games, like World of Warcraft (the NSA's favorite), in-game characters and items can change hands for substantial amounts of real money. So when a gamer is relieved of valuable loot or accounts by scammers or thieves, should these online opportunists be considered criminals? It's a question one UK politician wanted to address in Parliament yesterday, as he called for real-world sentences to be handed out for these virtual crimes. The politician, a WoW player himself, requested the UK Justice Minister accelerate legislation to that effect, arguing that gamers are entitled to the same amount of legal protection. He added that only serious and/or serial offenders be targeted, though, rather than throwing the book at anyone who's committed a minor indiscretion. The Justice Minister did say online fraud or theft can carry severe sentences, but that it's ultimately up to courts to decide on the punishment.

Most YouTubers just get a takedown notice if someone reports them using copyrighted tunes with their videos. But when that user is a huge star on the video portal like make-up guru Michelle Phan, who has almost 7 million subscribers and was even featured on YouTube's TV ad campaign, then things get a bit more intense. Electronic dance record label Ultra Music (home to Deadmau5 and other popular artists of the genre) just slapped Phan with a copyright infringement lawsuit, which accuses her of using 50 tracks released under the company without permission. Ultra wants Phan to pay $150,000 for each instance, claiming she profited from its artists' music, most likely because 1.) she's a YouTube partner, and 2.) the fame she gained on the website eventually led to lucrative deals with cosmetics companies Lancôme and L'Oreal.

What happens on Facebook doesn't just stay on Facebook, and your social network activity can be used against you in a court of law. Trolling, bullying and posting offensive content can all land you in hot water, not to mention that your Facebook history can be used as evidence in all kinds of criminal cases. Currently, even the US Supreme Court is trying to clarify legal accountability of social media. Now, in what's thought to be the first prosecution of its kind, a man in Ireland has been charged with "frape" -- the rather tactless term that describes defacing someone's Facebook page from within their account.

The United States government intends to offer European citizens the same privacy rights extended to US citizens. Exactly how it will do that is yet to be determined, but US attorney general Eric Holder this week told European leaders of the Obama administration's intention to create legislation offering EU citizens "the same right to seek judicial redress for intentional or willful disclosures of protected information and for refusal to grant access or to rectify any errors in that information." Holder made the announcement at a US-EU home affairs and justice ministers meeting in Greece this past Wednesday.

The news comes in the wake of a strained 12 months in US-EU relations; information revealed by former security/cryptography expert Edward Snowden showed that the US government spied on a variety of EU leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Holder's lack of specificity left EU leaders wanting for more. "Words only matter if put into law," EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding told The Guardian. "We are waiting for the legislative step."

New York is against second-hand smoke of any kind; even beneficiaries of the state's new medical marijuana law will need to avoid lighting up. Government restrictions do allow vaporizers, however, which got their (legal) start with tobacco and are about to become big business in NY. The handheld devices will play a key role in the treatment of medical marijuana recipients, who will be permitted to inhale the drug through vaporizers, but not by using cigarette paper and a lighter. You'll also be able to consume marijuana in food or through a concentrated liquid called a tincture, but there's no question that vaporizers will become more prolific as more New Yorkers get their hands on closely regulated prescriptions in the days and months to come.

Picture a scenario where the government's accused you of a crime. During its investigation, law enforcement copies your computer's hard drive to look for evidence of your misdeeds (pursuant to a warrant, of course). Until today, it was unclear if law enforcement could hold onto copies of your data forever. A new Federal Court decision, however, has crystallized things for us all: the government can no longer keep that data indefinitely. United States v. Ganias is the name of the case in question, and the court held that indefinite retention of our digital files is an illegal seizure under the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.

YouView could soon be forced into a rebrand after it suffered another loss in the courts. After almost two years of legal battles, telecoms company Total successfully argued that YouView had infringed on its "Your View" trademark. Judges agreed that the brand would was "confusingly similar" to Your View, allowing Total to push ahead not only for damages but also seek an injunction on "any further use of the name." YouView maintains that there's "no confusion" between its consumer TV service and Total's business-to-business mobile top-up platform, but today marks the third (and most likely final) time it has come off second best in the courts. Last year, Livescribe was on the wrong end of a UK trademark dispute and was forced to rebrand its Sky Wi-Fi pen having lost to BSkyB. If YouView suffers the same fate, its backers, which include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT and TalkTalk, will have the fun job of figuring out what to call their TV offering moving forward.

The basic facts of how Megaupload was shut down in 2012 are public knowledge. But the founder of the file-sharing service, Kim Dotcom, believes there's a subtext to what really happened -- and he's looking for your help to prove it. In essence, he claims to be the victim of a "corrupt" plot between two back-scratching parties: the US authorities, which supposedly wanted to secure the re-election of President Barack Obama, and the movie moguls of Hollywood, who allegedly offered influence over votes in return for having Megaupload terminated for copyright abuse. The only problem? Dotcom will actually have to prove all of this to a New Zealand court, otherwise he'll face extradition to the US, not to mention a string of further civillawsuits. And so far, it isn't going well.